I'm close to the edge, former G-G says

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Former governor-general Peter Hollingworth has revealed he is
"on the edge" with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder
over his resignation two years ago.

Dr Hollingworth also says he can understand why people commit
suicide, although he has never contemplated it himself.

He is still on medication for depression. "I am pretty close to
the edge," Dr Hollingworth has told The Bulletin magazine.
"I know about the black dog. I also know that you can't let it get
on your back because it will bring you down."

The candid interview, to be published tomorrow, is one of only a
few times that Dr Hollingworth has spoken publicly about his
resignation on May 25, 2003.

He was forced to resign after he was accused of being involved
in a cover-up of child sex abuse in the Anglican Church in
Queensland during his 11 years as archbishop of Brisbane. He has
always denied the accusation.

Dr Hollingworth says his downfall was due to a "powerful secular
culture" keen to undermine anything religious.

"It's alive and well, and don't I know it," he told the
magazine. "The child-abuse thing was the trigger, but at the end of
day there is a deeply virulent, secularist, anti-religious streak
out there in Australian society."

The beginning of the end of Dr Hollingworth's tenure as
governor-general came with an interview on the ABC's Australian
Story in February 2002, in which he gave the impression that a
woman who complained of abuse by a priest when she was 14 had been
the initiator.

Dr Hollingworth says he did the interview because he is anxious
to move on.

"Frankly, I want to get this monkey off my back," he says. "I
want to get on and do what I know I can do."